16, 2012, the orbiter entered the then-new Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, a temporary building named after the late entrepreneur and philanthropist whose family foundation made a 'transformational gift' to the science center. 'Mission 26,' as it was dubbed, saw the orbiter embark on a three-day, 12-mile (19-km) road trip. 21, 2012, Endeavour was lowered off its carrier aircraft and placed into a hangar to wait the next leg of its journey. Touching down at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. Fifteen months later, after NASA engineers stripped out its hazardous materials and removed its engines to be reused by moon-bound rockets, Endeavour was mounted to the top of a modified Boeing 747 and ferried from Florida to California.

The last of NASA's five space shuttle orbiters to enter service, Endeavour, or OV-105, landed from its 25th and final mission on June 1, 2011. By putting the whole system on display it will allow us to talk more about the engineering and science behind it and what it takes to go into space.'Ī ceremonial groundbreaking is scheduled for Wednesday, June 1, 11 years to the day after Endeavour returned from Earth orbit for the final time. 'The orbiter alone could not go into space. 'It will be an incredibly dramatic display, but it will also allow us to put on display the whole system,' Jeffrey Rudolph, president and chief executive officer of the California Science Center, said in an interview with collectSPACE. The California Science Center in Los Angeles is set to begin construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a new museum that will display Endeavour vertically, as if poised for another launch, complete with a fuel tank and two side-mounted boosters. More than a decade after it was grounded, NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour is soon to be the focus of a groundbreaking.

History of endeavour space shuttle